Canberra coach Neil Henry will gladly take the two points from the Raiders' 34-30 NRL win against Penrith despite what he described as an unacceptable performance.

The Raiders let in three tries in the final seven minutes of a stop-start game - marred by six stoppages for the video referee - but escaped with a win thanks to a hat-trick of tries to centre Phil Graham.

In just his second game back from a 10-week break with a knee injury, Graham played the perfect centre role, finishing off work started by the halves pairing of Michael Dobson and Todd Carney.

But Henry found more negatives than positives in the match.

"It degenerated into a game that reflected the relevant standings of the sides in the competition," Henry said, referring to Canberra's 13th position and Penrith's bottom placing.

"Three tries in seven minutes is unacceptable.

"But we got two points."

The Raiders were twice denied tries by video referee Chris Ward in the first half before referee Paul Simpkins declared replacement forward Tom Learoyd-Lahrs had been held up over the line shortly after the break.

But Henry refused to dwell on the refereeing.

For Panthers coach Matt Elliott the dark abyss that has become 2007 continued despite a largely valiant performance.

He refused to answer a string of questions about returning to his former club and gave no reaction to the torrent of abuse thrown at him by the parochial crowd.

"We've got a lot of great things happening, we're just doing a fantastic job of disguising that at the moment," Elliott said after the match.

"We have to take that camouflage off at some stage because it's fairly dark in here at the moment."

Elliott highlighted the performance of try-scorer Michael Jennings and refused to criticise fullback Richie Williams, who was left embarrassed after waiting for a long-range kick to cross the dead-ball line only to see Raiders winger Bronx Goodwin ground the ball and claim the four points.

The loss leaves Penrith closer than ever to claiming the wooden spoon, especially following the Sydney Roosters' upset win against premiership favourites Melbourne.

Panthers captain Craig Gower admitted his side was desperate to avoid the most unwanted prize in the NRL.

"That's our goal, no one wants the wooden spoon," Gower said.

"We've worked hard and there's still five games to go and I'm just worried about next week."

Brought to you by AAP © 2024 AAP